I can't agree more. I've seen HN degrade into that kind of discussion over the last 2 years and it really disappoints me.
Part of me wishes HN had a really strong moderator that slapped down nay-sayers. If you're not contributing something valuable, comment deleted.
Slapping down dissenting opinions leads to an echo-chamber. One mans sceptic is another's "nay-sayer", I think community moderation (via votes) is filtering high value comments rather well,so specific moderation is hardly required: egregious flaming excepted.
> If you're not contributing something valuable, comment deleted
Just because you disagree with a given opinion does not make it worthless.
What a load of rubbish. Note that HN already has strong moderation, and does delete "way out there" contrarian views. If this was taken to the extreme, only back-patting allowed, the comments would become useless. And I feel, like others, this already goes on a lot (e.g. the top karma posters all tend to agree/compliment each other, there isn't that much disagreement although it happens sometimes).
You say it's "degraded", but it's more likely that HN's audience has diversified as it's grown, and therefore it's less likely for you to agree with any given comment.
What if HN included sentiment in the sort algorithm?
The post score you see would stay the same (upvotes minus downvotes). You'd just multiply the sort score by, for example, 1.25 for posts positive in tone and 0.8 for posts with negative tone.
So if two comments have about the same number of upvotes, the nicer one appears higher up.
Criticism or disapproval could still become top post with enough upvotes, but it wouldnt happen as often as it does now.
I just want positive comments to appear as the top comment more often.
Negative commenta should have a bit of a higher bar (in other words, need more votes) to get to the top
"I think it's a good idea to start a national wingsuit base jumping team."
"I don't know if that's a good idea. Pretty high chance of death"
Penalized - negative post
"I think these questions at IAC are great, it's good that people get a chance to <self promote thing> at a technical conference"
"Wtf is with these stupid questions at IAC? They should be asking about <fascinating technical detail>"
i.e.,
"I think these questions at IAC are great,..."
"...they should be asking about <fascinating technical detail>"
But it could be useful to look at the comment history of a user. When someone who is an overall positively minded contributor (with a high average positive sentiment) suddenly writes one scathing reply, this could mark a potentially interesting thread.
Pointing out flaws == not valuable?